1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dispenser for disposable sanitary gloves in general and more particularly to a system of pouches of disposable sanitary gloves and a reusable dispenser for the pouches for use in sanitary environments.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of disposable gloves is widespread and diverse. Many professional occupations, including ambulance, fire, police, medical, dental, laboratory personnel, food handlers and many others, use such disposable gloves for a wide variety of uses and applications. A major limitation to expanding the use and availability of such gloves is found in the manner in which they have been packaged for use and distribution to the ultimate consumer.
The prior art glove dispensers consist basically of familiar, expected and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the numerous designs encompassed by the prior art. Given the intended disposable nature of the gloves and the necessity of maintaining a low cost per glove, a majority of the current means for packaging a plurality of gloves in a unit for dispensing consists of a plurality of gloves in a stacked, rolled or folded relationship contained within a paperboard box. In this kind of packaging it is very difficult to consistently retrieve only one glove at a time and too often a user pulls a plurality of gloves out of the box resulting in discarding all but the one required. Another packaging means for such gloves has comprised a roll of tissue paper carrying a single glove mounted on the paper roll in spaced relationship from one another along the length of the roll. This is not satisfactory because it is too costly for many applications or potential applications in which such gloves might otherwise be made available for use. Further, both of these packaging methods are deficient in providing protection of the packaged gloves against the elements of water or moisture.
Other prior art examples include U.S. Pat. No. 4,844,293 to Mclaughlin that describes a dispensing apparatus for disposable, thin plastic gloves that consists of a box like, rectangular type enclosure for housing a removably mounted packet containing a plurality of gloves. The dispenser contains a front window and a removable top cover or cap. The gloves are biasly urged toward the front window of the dispenser using a leaf spring arrangement to present the outermost glove to the user. U.S. Pat. No. 5,088,620 to Kellihur et al discloses a dispenser for gloves consisting of a tubular body having a first end and a second end and having a spring disposed therein. A top element slidably fits over the top of the tubular body and has an opening therein and a disc element including an aperture. The spring urges the disc member against a nipple shaped member containing the gloves, allowing for removal of one glove at a time from the device. U.S. Pat. No. 5,096,089 to McLaughlin describes a dispensing device for thin, disposable plastic gloves that consists of a rectangular shaped enclosure for housing a removably mounted packet containing a plurality of gloves. The gloves are arranged in closely spaced, parallel relationship to one another for removal one at a time through an opening in the walls of the enclosure. The packet of gloves includes a mounting strip which extends across the upper wrist portion of the stack of gloves and is fixed to each glove above the tear line. Each glove is removed by exerting a downward force through the opening of the enclosure. Other prior art patents include U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,909 to Rogow; U.S. Pat. No. 5,921,434 to Hollander et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 6,021,919 to Kelly.
It would be desirable to provide a convenient and disposable glove dispensing system that provides efficient one at a time retrieval of the gloves in a low cost manner and further provides a low cost reusable protected dispenser that encourages the use of the gloves in applications requiring sanitary gloves.
The present invention is directed to a glove dispenser system that includes a container and a pouch containing stacked, partially folded gloves. The container is rigid and generally rectangular and has a lid and a bottom, two spaced, parallel front and back walls, two spaced, parallel side walls and an opening in the lid. The lid provides interior access to the container. The pouch is generally rectangular shaped and it has a pair of spaced parallel extending faces yieldably connected to one another. The faces have a planar configuration for encompassing the planar area of a partially folded disposable glove. One of the faces has an opening aligned with the opening in the lid of the container.
The pouch contains a plurality of gloves placed between the pouch faces in which the gloves are in a stacked folded relationship with one another. The folded relationship being formed by a thumb of the glove being folded under a palm area of the glove and fingers of the glove being folded over the thumb and the palm area. The configuration of the pouch opening and the folded relationship of the gloves provides for the removal of one of the plurality of gloves at a time during a dispensing procedure.
The foregoing has outlined rather broadly the features and technical advantages of the present invention in order that the detailed description of the invention that follows may be better understood. Additional features and advantages of the invention will be described hereinafter which form the subject of the claims of the invention. It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the conception and specific embodiment disclosed may be readily utilized as a basis for modifying or designing other structures for carrying out the same purposes of the present invention. It should also be realized by those skilled in the art that such equivalent constructions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims. The novel features which are believed to be characteristic of the invention, both as to its organization and method of operation, together with further objects and advantages will be better understood from the following description when considered in connection with the accompanying figures. It is to be expressly understood, however, that each of the figures is provided for the purpose of illustration and description only and is not intended as a definition of the limits of the present invention.